A haunting story of love and division against the backdrop of the Troubles: an Irish modern classic.

Cal is a Catholic boy on a Protestant estate. His Ulster is a violent world in the grip of fear, a land where tenderness flickers only briefly in the dark. As Cal becomes guiltily entangled with local IRA activities, he also meets Marcella, a librarian - and a Protestant. Cal's choices are devastatingly simple: brood on the past, or try to plan a future with the woman he loves?

'Simple humanity, eloquently caught' New York Times

'McLaverty has a true feeling for tragedy' Anita Brookner